With an increasing number of young Taiwanese expressing an interest in applying for jobs in China, 104 Job Bank senior deputy general manager Joe Chen (陳嵩榮) yesterday advised applicants to be aware of the changing nature of employment opportunities across the Strait, despite the nation’s attitude toward Taiwanese talent.
More enterprises in China are adjusting their employment policies to focus on local hiring and as a result many are no longer offering travel or housing subsidies to overseas recruits, Chen said.
Moreover, rental costs in some first-tier Chinese cities are even higher than in Taipei, Chen added, citing as examples Shanghai’s Jingan, Changning and Huangpu districts, where the monthly rent for an ensuite room is at least 6,500 yuan (US$1,034).
“Livelihood pressure is very high,” Chen said, advising young jobseekers to take potentially negative factors into consideration before deciding to pursue a job in China.
Chen made the remarks while publicizing a study by the job bank which showed that among its online members, the percentage of 18-to-24-year-olds considering employment in China has grown to 10 percent this year from 2 percent a decade ago.
The study also shows that 3,562 new graduates have indicated a desire to work overseas this year, 69 percent of whom expressed a preference for China.
Of the young jobseekers wishing to work abroad, 52 percent have either a master’s degree or doctorate, it found.
According to the study, 28 percent of those interested in working overseas graduated from National Taiwan University, National Cheng Kung University, National Chengchi University, National Chiao Tung University or National Tsing Hua University.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day